Io – November 2015 p.1 IO - November 2015 Issue 2015-11 PO Box 7264 Eugene Astronomical Society Annual Club Dues $25 Springfield, OR 97475 President: Diane Martin 541-554-8570 www.eugeneastro.org Secretary: Jerry Oltion 541-343-4758 Additional Board members: EAS is a proud member of: Jacob Strandlien, John Loper, Mel Bartels. Next Meeting Thursday, November19th Time Lapse and Astrophotography by Bill Basham At our November 19th meeting, club member Bill Basham will describe how he does his time lapse vid- eos and astronomy photographs. Bill will demonstrate the time lapse program he developed that runs inside Canon Powershot cameras, such as the Canon G1X, and automatically adjusts the exposure as the lighting changes. Bill will also describe the techniques he has learned for taking astrophotos, including tracking, auto- guiding, and how to take pictures through a telescope. Here’s just one great image Bill has taken re- cently; see more of his work on p.4 and p.6. At our meetings we also encourage people to Helix Nebula © by Bill Basham bring any new gear or projects they would like to show the rest of the club. The meeting is at 7:00 on Thursday, November 19th at the Science Factory planetarium. Next First Quarter Friday: November 20th Our October 23rd First Quarter Star Party was clouded out, and our Saturday backup was little better. We had three scopes and three guests to observe through them during the three minutes (or so) of clearing. Here’s hoping November will treat us better. Our next First Quarter Friday is on November Dues are Past Due! 20th. First Quarter Fridays are laid-back opportuni- EAS membership runs from October thru Sep- ties to do some observing and promote astronomy at the same time. Mark your calendar and bring your tember. If you haven’t renewed already, please scope to the College Hill Reservoir (24th and bring your payment to the meeting or mail your dues to the Eugene Astronomical Society, PO Box Lawrence in Eugene) and share the view with who- 7264, Springfield, OR 97475. Dues are still the ever shows up. Here’s the schedule for the rest of same low $25 they’ve been for years. Make your 2015. Star parties start at dusk or 6:00, whichever is later. checks payable to Eugene Astronomical Society, November 20 (70% lit) December 18 (55% lit) or just EAS if your pen is low on ink. Io – November 2015 p.2 October 15th Meeting Report Our October 15th meeting attracted a nearly full house. The planetarium was filled with club mem- bers old and new, and several guests who were there for the first time. This was dues month, so we collected quite a few renewals and a couple of new memberships. It was also our annual business meeting, so we re- elected Jacob Strandlien and John Loper to the board of directors. (Diane Martin, Mel Bartels, and Jerry Oltion have another year on their terms.) Diane has agreed to stay on as club president and Jerry Oltion has agreed to stay on as secretary. Bruce Hindrichs showed us a proposed design for a big sandwich-board star party sign that he plans to make for the club. Thanks, Bruce! Mel Bartels gave a talk on telescope magnification, in which he showed how a few basic principles apply to just about any telescope. For instance, the minimum useful magnification is about four times the mirror diameter in inches. Below that you waste light because the exit pupil (the beam of light leaving the eyepiece) can’t fit into your eye. The maximum useful magnification is roughly 25 times the mirror diam- eter in inches before diffraction effects dominate the image quality. The sweet spot is somewhere inbetween, typically at a magnification that gives you a 2mm exit pupil. (Exit pupil is most easily calculated by divid- ing the telescope’s f-ratio into the eyepiece focal length. For instance, a 10mm eyepiece in an f/5 telescope would give you a 2mm exit pupil.) Mel taught us quite a bit more about magnification and de-mystified a lot of the misconceptions floating around about it. It was a great talk. Jerry Oltion then gave us a tour of the Autumn sky, showing us several objects that might not be familiar to everyone even if they’ve been observing for a while. He mentioned several good doubles that are still visible from light-polluted sky, some of which present a challenge to split and some of which are easy and offer nice color contrast. (Zeta Piscium, Zeta Aquarii, Gamma Arietis, Gamma Andromeda.) He also showed us some good galaxies and planetary nebulae that would reward a trip out of town. (M74, NGC 7479, NGC 246, NGC 253.) He showed us where we can see individual stars in a distant galaxy (NGC 604 within M33) and a couple of clusters that are so big they’re better in binoculars or by Stock 2, the Muscle Man Cluster near the Double Cluster in Perseus naked eye than in a telescope, yet most people have never heard of them. (Stock 2, the Muscle Man Cluster; the Alpha Persei Moving Group.) It was a fun meeting! Don’t miss next month when Bill Basham will tell us how he does his beautiful time lapse videos and astrophotos. UO Science Fair The University of Oregon Science Fair, target- ing young children, was held on October 7th at Willamette Hall on the UO campus. Jim Kiely repre- sented the EAS there and reports: “Great turnout. Went through 5 bags of candy! :) Had presentation on solar wind and Sun’s energy production cycle. Video, mod- els and charts. Met some awesome future physicists. Humbling.” Thanks, Jim, for being there! Io – November 2015 p.3 Concert of the Cosmos The Concert of the Cosmos, the astronomy- themed pipe organ concert organized by our very own Dan Rinnan and that has been put on twice in Eu- gene (once in 2008 with Jerry Oltion as narrator, and again last year with Bernie Bopp as narrator) will be shown again this November 15th in Corvallis. This concert is a tour de force of pipe organ music ac- companied by stunning visuals illustrating the themes of the various musical pieces. Those themes range from the Sun and planets to stars, novae, aurorae, nebulae, and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field reaching back nearly to the Big Bang itself. If you missed the local showings, it would be well worth your time to drive to Corvallis to see this one. Some of the region’s best pipe organists will be playing, and the music ranges from the thundrous to the sublime. There’s nothing quite like a pipe organ to get your attention, and nothing quite like the sight of the universe to render you properly awed. Go! M15 Wide Field Reveals Nebula Mel Bartels continues to find things in his fast, wide-field telescopes that nobody has reported see- ing visually before. This time it’s a wide swath of nebu- losity near M15. Deep photos do indeed show this very object, but whether it’s a faint reflection nebula, part of the “integrated flux nebula” that permeates the sky, or an extension of the Milky Way is an open ques- tion. This feature has apparently not been named yet. Who says there’s nothing left to discover visu- ally? Mel is proving again and again that that’s not so. It just takes a practiced eye, a fast scope, and close attention to what you’re seeing. Way to go, Mel! Thank You Storage Junction Storage Junction has donated the use of a storage unit for us to hold our loaner telescopes when they’re not in use. EAS would like to thank Storage Junction for their generosity and support for our group. Please give them a call if you need a storage space, and tell your friends. Storage Junction is located at 93257 Prairie Road (at the intersection of Hwy 99 and Hwy 36, 3 miles south of Junction City) Phone: 541-998-5177 Io – November 2015 p.4 Morning Conjunctions Venus, Mars, and Jupiter have been packed close Regulus together in the early morning all month. Early on the morning of October 9th, the Moon joined them and Alan Gillespie caught them plus the bright star Regu- Venus lus in one frame, all while the rising Sun was turning the sky blue. The planets played tag all month as Jupiter and Mars passed one another, then Venus passed Jupiter on its way to a conjunction with Mars on November 2nd and 3rd. The Moon will join them again on No- vember 6th when it will be near Jupiter, which will be even higher in the sky by then, and then on No- vember 7th the Moon will be near Venus, which will Mars be the lowest planet of the three. Venus Moon Mars Jupiter Jupiter Morning Planets on October 9th, photo © by Alan Gillespie Mercury 59 Leonis Moon Jupiter Morning Planets on October 11th, photo © by Bill Basham Bill Basham caught part of the action on Octo- Venus ber 11th, and he got Mercury and the Moon in the frame, too. Mercury never quite reached the other planets, rising up into the morning sky for just a few days before dropping back toward the Sun. Jeff Phillips caught the image to the right later Sigma Leonis in the month after Venus had passed Jupiter. Mars It has been a dynamic month for the early morn- ing sky, well worth the trouble of getting up early to watch it.